Fabulous Farewell: Gun Runner Prevails in Pegasus in Career Finale

Gun Runner surged away from West Coast in the stretch to win the $16 million Pegasus World Cup on Saturday at Gulfstream Park in the final start of his career. (Eclipse Sportswire)

Midway on the turn of the world’s richest race Jan. 27 at Gulfstream Park, jockey Javier Castellano made his move.

He brought West Coast off the rail, moved outside of front-running favorite Gun Runner, and began to cut into the lead with strides that added even more electricity the $16.3 million, Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup.

“I attacked [Gun Runner] to try and surprise him,” Castellano said.

Watching his horse challenge for the lead gave Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert a thought that maybe he could duplicate his 2017 feat of winning the inaugural Pegasus World Cup with Arrogate last year.

“I thought we had a chance to get there and it looked like we were giving [Gun Runner] a run,” Baffert said.

And then, in the next moment, all of the greatness that carried Gun Runner to 2017 Horse of the Year honors and an enviable streak of Grade 1 wins came to fore.

Jockey Florent Geroux let out a notch and Gun Runner responded like a champion in fending off the bid of another champion.

In the final race of a spectacular career, Gun Runner held Gary and Mary West’s newly crowned outstanding 3-year-old of 2017 at bay through the stretch and recorded 2 1/2-length victory over West Coast in the second edition of the Pegasus before a crowd listed as 16,400.

“We’re not saying goodbye,” winning trainer Steve Asmussen said. “What Gun Runner has given us will live in our memories forever.”

Gun Runner gaining early position. (Eclipse Sportswire)

In the final act of a brilliant career that saw him move out of the shadow of Arrogate and grab the Horse of the Year title that in the summer seemed destined for his Juddmonte rival, Winchell Thoroughbreds' and Three Chimneys Farm’s Gun Runner lived up to every bit of the expectations that made him a heavy 6-5 favorite ($4.20) over his 11 foes.

In taking home the $7 million winner’s share of the purse for owners Ron Winchell and Borges Torrealba, Gun Runner moved past California Chrome into second on the all-time earnings list with $15,988,500. He trails only Arrogate, who beat him in last year’s Dubai World Cup and retired with $17,422,600 in earnings.

“It’s bittersweet. You can’t dream of a better ending, but you don’t want it to have an ending,” Winchell said. “I wanted to continue running him, but I got talked out of it. We came here to make him a Grade 1 winner as a 5-year-old and he ran away with it.”

As easy as it was at the end, there was some trepidation as the horses loaded into the gate. Gun Runner had post-position 10, a notoriously tough spot for winning at 1 1/8 miles on the main track at Gulfstream.

But Geroux took care of that. Once the son of Candy Ride broke smoothly from the gate, Geroux was able to use Gun Runner’s natural quickness to glide over to an inside path and race just outside of the early leader, Speedway Stable’s Collected, the horse who finished second behind Gun Runner in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Del Mar.

“You know, the main thing was the break. We knew the break was going to be really important in the race. When he broke very sharply like he’s very capable of, from there I was just following Collected,” said Geroux, who became a United States citizen earlier this week. “And when Collected went on and was able to be in front of Sharp Azteca, I just sat off his flank. By the three-eighths pole when Collected was getting tired, I just took over from there. Gun Runner was just waiting for my signal to go.”

To the victor go the spoils. (Eclipse Sportswire)

Looking on, Winchell let out a huge sigh of relief when he saw Gun Runner positioned just outside Collected on the potentially treacherous first turn.

“The stress left me when he broke nicely out of the gate and slid over to the two path. I felt very comfortable after that,” Winchell said.

Collected tracked Gun Runner’s pace in the Breeders’ Cup, but when they swapped roles in the Pegasus it did little to help Collected. After carving out early fractions of 23.41 and 46.61 seconds with Gun Runner hounding him, Collected began to weaken at the three-eighths pole and faded to seventh.

That left Gun Runner on the lead, and the only horse doing any running behind him was West Coast. Third in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, the Travers Stakes Presented by NYRA Bets and Pennsylvania Derby winner launched a spirited challenge from fourth as he and Gun Runner separated themselves from the field.

Yet after West Coast moved to within a length of Gun Runner at the eighth pole in a two-horse duel to the finish line, Gun Runner edged clear to post a hard-fought victory for his 12th win in a 19-race career.

“It’s the cherry on the top,” Asmussen said. “He earned it. He wasn’t given it. Now we’ll get to watch his videos in the Hall of Fame for as long as we’re around.”

For Baffert, there was disappointment, but also some pride that it took a “great horse” to beat his 4-year-old colt.

“Turning for home I thought Gun Runner might be a little empty, but his tank is so big and he just kept going. He’s just a great horse. He just kept on running,” said Baffert, who also trains Collected. “I was proud of my horse [West Coast]. He just keeps getting better. I can’t really complain. We just got beat by a really good horse. He was tested the whole way around there. It was a good horse race. I just came up a little short.”

Gun Runner, bred by Besilu Stables covered the 1 1/8 miles in 1:47.41.

West Coast, the 7-2 second-choice, collected $1,600,000 for a runner-up finish in which he was a decisive 10 3/4 lengths ahead of the next horse past the wire. Well behind the top two, 13-1 shot Gunnevera grabbed third by a half-length over 74-1 outsider Fear the Cowboy. They received $1,300,000 and $1 million, respectively, in purse money in a race where entrants paid $1 million for a spot in the race but were guaranteed a return of at least $650,000.